Artist draws on Latin culture

Saturday

Sep 26, 2009 at 12:01 AM

For those who harbor a special interest and/or affection for Pre-Columbian imagery, the colors of Latin America, and the mysteries of ancient Latino cultures (especially the Inca), check out the exhibition, "Living in Memory — Paintings and Drawings by Nilton Cardenas" at Colo Colo Gallery on Centre Street in New Bedford.

David B. Boyce

For those who harbor a special interest and/or affection for Pre-Columbian imagery, the colors of Latin America, and the mysteries of ancient Latino cultures (especially the Inca), check out the exhibition, "Living in Memory — Paintings and Drawings by Nilton Cardenas" at Colo Colo Gallery on Centre Street in New Bedford.

A native of Lima, Peru, Cardenas first came to the United States with his family at 20, and settled in Providence some years later. He has since shown extensively in the United States and in Spain.

Working principally in acrylic on canvas and ink on paper, Cardenas explores his ancestry in an effort to ensconce himself within the continuum of their mythos, mysticism, and spirit. So much of what is current in the palette of Latino artistic cultures is drawn from what is known from their past. Archaeology has shown us that statuary and wall decoration of the Inca, the Aztec, the Maya, and other Pre-Columbian cultures was often brilliantly colored, highly stylized, and founded in religious and mythological imagery.

The codices, now scattered in museums throughout the world and created by Spanish clergy accompanying the European invaders, reveal only the visual elements they encountered, unable as they were to translate hieroglyphs and native tongues. But these interpretations do reveal a love of color in the everyday lives of common people, as well as in royal and elitist social castes. Cardenas' work celebrates these joyous palettes.

Ancient objects, such as spears, masks, musical instruments, and household relics float amid the swatches and bands of flaming color, the patterns of ancient textiles, and the wisps of mythology that configure Cardenas' compositions. His mostly black-and-white ink drawings of structures in landscapes are complex and accented with only one or two highlights of color.

Walking down William Street on Tuesday, this writer spied SouthCoast painter and UMD painting faculty professor, Sig Haines, standing in the Carter's parking lot and looking up at the mural being painted on the east wall of the building. Part of the Teen Mural Program of ArtWorks!, Sig has been supervising a group of interested teens in creating a mural that pays homage to the spirit of New Bedford's artistic past.

Untitled for the moment, the mural references two specific painters with indelible ties to New Bedford — Albert Bierstadt and Albert Pinkham Ryder — with partial sections from two of those artist's best known works. According to a work-in-progress image of the planned mural that sits on an easel on the sidewalk adjacent to the parking lot, a viewer can detect a partial section of a paint palette and beneath it, the protruding feet of an artist presumably at work on a painting.

Otherwise, the mural features images that more generally refer to artist's studios and commercial galleries: paint palettes, easels, a printing machine, a large box camera (William Street was home to numerous galleries and art studios at the height of the whaling industry), stacks of frames, etc.

"It's a new experience for me to supervise a painting," said Sig, "Especially such a big one."

One can detect slight differences already from the projected planned image. "Yes, I've adjusted some of the angles for the rectangles that describe the three floating spaces," Sig said. Referring to the mural's height in the middle of the building's wall, Sig says, "It just feels odd to orchestrate it from this far down!"

How fitting to choose one of SouthCoast's best-known painters to oversee the production of a mural honoring New Bedford's cultural past. This is truly an example of the continuum of this city's fundamental belief in the arts as an important element of city life.

David B. Boyce is senior arts correspondent for The Standard-Times. ARTicles appears biweekly.

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